Jeanne Pinder
(Posted August 2019; updates planned) How do you buy health insurance? We are frequently asked to help people buy health insurance. Our specialty is the cost of health care, not buying insurance. We don’t do individual consultations on what insurance to buy. We’re not really qualified for that, and also people must be certified and […]
Jeanne Pinder
The community member did not leave a name, but she/he was outraged. The procedure: A cardiovascular stress test, CPT code 93107. The charge? $864.80. Cigna insurance paid nothing at the St. David’s North Austin Medical Center in Texas. The comment: “This was a simple 10 EKG on a treadmill. No Dr. Present, no interpretation. Trace […]
Jeanne Pinder
A friend writes: “The price of my medication, Losartan for high blood pressure, jumped last month. “I take the 100 mg size. It went from $13 a month to $63 a month on my insurance, via Cigna. The medication is a generic for Benicar, so I was surprised at the price jump. “They told me […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Marilyn Bartlett took a deep breath, drew herself up to her full 5 feet and a smidge, and told the handful of Montana officials that she had a radical strategy to bail out the state’s foundering benefit plan for its 30,000 employees and their families,” Marshall Allen writes over at ProPublica. “The officials were listening. […]
Jeanne Pinder
“For more than 30 minutes on a frigid February morning, Robert Findley lay unconscious in the back of an ambulance as paramedics hand-pumped oxygen into his lungs,” Sarah Jane Tribble wrote for Kaiser Health News. “They were waiting for a helicopter to land at a helipad just across the icy parking lot next to Mercy […]
Jeanne Pinder
“The past decade has seen enormous growth in health care costs paid by both employees and employers, creating the context for some of today’s biggest political debates as well as teeing up more problems for the future,” Caitlin Owens writes for Axios. “Yes, but: There are some signs that employers have maxed out their ability […]
Jeanne Pinder
Epic, the giant electronic medical records company, is offering a price estimate button that doctors can use in the office. Kristin Cain, a reproductive endocrinologist in North Dakota, posted this on Twitter: “EPIC has a button I just discovered: Patient Estimate. After you place an order, it estimates the out of pocket cost. Except if […]
Jeanne Pinder
“A recently published analysis of hospital prices shows Georgia in the top third among 25 states studied,” Andy Miller writes over at Georgia Health News about a Rand study that dives deep into high hospital prices nationwide. The original study is here. “The Rand Corp. data uses prices paid by health insurers under employer-based coverage, […]
Jeanne Pinder
“One afternoon about a year ago, just as the Senate began considering Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, I logged on to Day Night Healthcare, an online pharmacy based in India, and ordered a pack of abortion pills,” Farhad Manjoo writes for The New York Times. “A few hours later, I got a call […]
Jeanne Pinder
“As this week’s Democratic debates made clear, the party is divided on how to improve health care for Americans,” Ezekiel J. Emanuel wrote over at The New York Times. “Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others are for a single-payer Medicare for All system. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and others want an incremental approach […]
